simfantastic2: The blend mode blends entire mesh groups. You need to seperate the mesh into groups based on how they should blend like how hair meshes are split up into lots of groups. These groups can use the same material definition and have the same name, as long as they are seperated in the GMDC, it should blend okay.

This is the deal - 'blend' will cause the problems you're seeing when 2 parts both blend get near each other.... so the second choice (none) is your best option if you want this to be a single group/subset object.

Your other choice is to build the tablecloth as a separate group with separate texture and make it just a smidge above the tabletop -- and then you can have your table solid (regular settings) and your tablecloth blend and I believe it'll all display correctly.

edit: I'm the slower at typing, this is pretty much the same advice as above

ok, thank you both for your help, i'll see what i can do Thanks.

First of all: Thanks Niol!

Hmm, the filename doesn't affect the file. Added English language support to another floor package and these multiple a's didn't affect the package. It must be some mistake because of the added bump map and the changes in the Material Definition. Am I too stupid or aren't User floors bump map - able at all?

natrobo, it's hard to say for sure without seeing the packages, but the most common reason for recolors not working on custom objects is that you didn't update the MMATs for the new main GUID correctly. Check what GUID the MMAT files refer to (the lines called objectGUID in the MMAT). If it still refers to the original Maxis object, it's not going to work. You can manually copy and paste your new main GUID to replace the value that's there, and commit and save. Then you need to do the same to the recolor packages, or create all new recolors.[/QUOTE]
Hi
I have another question about guids. It seams I have a recurent problem with guid.
In this post you said to update the main guid. How do you know witch guid is the main one. Lately I create an armoire which as 4 object data folders, I assign 4 new different new guid for each of them but I don't know which one is the main one...
Can you help me please, it's a problem to post objects here for download and discover that people won't be abble to recolour some files...
Thanks
Nat

Most of the time the main GUID is the one with the shortest name, no extra letters or numbers coming after it.

I'm sorry I was too careless not being able to catch the differences...

First of all,
the texture name format is improper.
"floor_..." should be be instead of "floor-...", so "floor_khaibit-seriensteine3-02-10-2006" instead of "floor-khaibit-seriensteine3-02-10-2006" for all the names in the txtr, txmt, xml files

Probably, my mistake in the in the tutoring part. Yeah, my desciption was misleading there. Sorry to all. That was supposed to mean that no additional "_" should be added to the texture file name. Sorry again... :P

@ the txmt file's property tab, delete these 3 lines
stdMatAlphaBlendMode none
stdeMatAlphaRefValue 127
stdMatAlphaTestEnabled 0
Use them only when you're making transparent tiles or alike or some other modded tiles.

@ the xml file, these're the further diffeences but not the cause of the blackness.
brightness
0x00000005
In HCP products, these are all
0x00000000

Also, in HCP tiles, they have
crapscore
0
routingcost
0

I'm gonna make a HCP tile along with your settings. For some reasons, my base game copy can never read tiles with guids and FR preset by the Simpe. So, I don't mod SimPE clones coz they never show up and work in my game copy.

Bump-mapped floor tiles are working, may read here , especially post 23
and/or see the stony modular tile set
here

Wow, it's a nice texture... The attached is the modded HCP version of your tile.

I don't normally use SimPE to clone tiles, wallpapers or terrain paint as the bases for custom contents coz they tend to be kinda messy and it takes more works to fix things around. I use them to track the files names and study the file structures instead.

Hi,

I've followed the tutorial "Object creation with wings 3d" and that went well but then I wanted to texture it so I searched for a tutorial for texturing and I decided to follow "Object making for dummies" but at page 7 where I had to open my selfmade object there is nothing under selected object. And there's even nothing in my recource tree.

And when I open my .obj file it says:

" An unhandles exception has occured in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore tis error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application wil be shut down immediatly.
Exception of type System.outOfMemoryException was thrown."

But my object does work in the Sims 2 (but not with my ownmade texture)

So maybe you can help me with this information. ( I hope so!!!)

TimSimser, there is something wrong with the RAR, too, as I'm not able to even extract the file.

TimSimser, when you want to upload a package, and the upload page tells you that only zip and rar are accepted, you DON'T have to manually rename the file extension from .package to .rar You are supposed to compress your package into a rar or zip archive! :D

Anyway, I can see your new mesh into your package, but I think that you have made some mistakes while cloning the original table: your package is quite messed up.
Clone again the original table, following carefully the tutorial, and then import your new mesh, just like you did the first time.


IBliss, if you are still interested, save the "rar" to your desktop and change the extension to ".package"

Good evening every body

First of, I hope that you all are having a good day or night.

I am having a bit of a problem here, which I was hoping someone might help me with? I’ve made a clone of a plant, a CEP-plant then I changed the mesh and the texture. But when I try to re-import the Obj, only half of my plant is visible. I have the CEP correctly installed (I can see the Potty Chair correctly), And I am following the “Sims 2 Start to Finish Object Creation tutorial”. I’ve uploaded a images showing some of the problem, but I have also uploaded the package.
Can anyone please tell me what I am doing wrong?

Sincerely,
WindBlower

that files still contains the original Maxis fern mesh, now displaying your texture. Are you sure you clicked on "commit" after importing your new mesh (and before saving)?

Dear Simaddict99

No the file does not containt the original mesh. My mesh is renamed (to match the clones name) like it should be when re-importet from milkshape. Commit save is not a thing I usually forget.
I've looked at what your saying, but this does not seem to be my problem..

how do I see the difference between a maxis package and a Milkshape (workeble) package??

Sincerely,
WindBlower

As far as I can tell, the mesh in your package is an identical copy of the original Maxis mesh, it looks the same, has the same vertex count, etc. There is no obvious way to tell a Maxis mesh from a custom one in a mesh editor, you can only do it by comparing. And recognizing your own mesh, of course.

Dear IgnorantBliss

hmm.. okay and Thank you so so much and also deeply thanks to simaddict99.
I will try to re-created the whole packagde. Wonder why I suddenly can't get it into simPE, because I am using the same way (proseduer) as I did with the Sun flower-obj, and this worked out fine.. Its probably something in Milkshape then, I deeply thank you both so much for your help.

Ohh boy, I think it is the Obj exporter, or something like that. No matter how many times I try to export the mesh through the Obj-exporter in milkshape, it dosen't save anything at all.. Probably a plugin problem.
-------------------------------------------------------

Quick Question;
Have anyone had a problem exporting from milkshape?
When I export as a Obj, I get two files,

one called : planthangingfern-[windblowerdk-5.10.2006-4d3a]_tslocator_gmdc
and : planthangingfern-[windblowerdk-5.10.mtl

And I cannot re-import it into milkshape as a Obj, to chek it.
and this file can apperently not be used in SimPE has anyone else experinced this problem?

Sincerely,
WindBlower

Almost every 3D editor, and even UVmapper (unless you tell it not to do it), when saving an OBJ file will create two files with the same name, but with different extensions:
1) filename.OBJ is the main file, that contains the vertices, the faces, the normals and the UVmap;
2) filename.MTL is the "material library": it contains information about the textures that should be applied to the mesh. SimPE just ignore the .MTL, when importing a mesh.

I see from your last post that there is a problem in the filenames: perhaps Milkshape has truncated the MTL name...
I suggest to reload your mesh in Milkshape, check if everything is OK, and then export it again as OBJ; but when you are asked for a filename, don't use the suggested one: instead, use a short filename of your choice, and also be sure that it has the ".obj" extension.

The filename of the OBJ file isn't important: you can choose whatever name you like.

If you still have problems, try exporting from Milkshape, and import the exported OBJ into UVmapper; then save again from UVmapper and import into SimPE.

Dear Numenor

THANK YOu so so much ! I did not know that I could changed that name to something else.
Great and thank you once again


Wow! You were so right Numenor, I just changed the name and it worked perfectly, dobble fan plant -heh-
Thank you all so much, once again!


Sincerely,
WindBlower

Hello!!

I have a question about Wings 3D.

I am able to successfully create meshes, however, when i create them in wings 3D program, the things are on an angle, so its really confusing and hard to work with. Is there a way i can make it rotate easily so it is not on a weird angle? It also screws up the textures a little as well because of this angle .

Tom: When you export the meshes from SimPE, do you have the order drop down menu set to 'xyz' or 'xzy'? Try exporting in whichever one you're *not* currently using. Just be sure that whichever one you export as, you use the same for import.

Thankyou so much Echo!!! That worked perfectly :-D.

Hi,
I have this recurent problem in my textures, and I dino't know how to repair this. I have create a new crib, the file works fine, but the texture in the game shows the lines of the mesh it allways append wen the mesh is based on cylinders. I use unimesh in this case. See the picture...
If someone can help me remove the lines...
Thanks
Nat

It's a problem of smoothing, from what I can see from your screenshot.
Milkshape has very odd smoothing functions (or I don't know how to use them correctly); try applying a smoothing to the faces before exporting with Unimesh.

Hi thanks
I've done more work on this and discoverd that those lines only appear after the mesh is exported using unimesh plugin, it also only appear on the left point of view... That's odd. I 've redone my crib using mayaObject import-export, and the lines disappeared...For this object, no problem, but if I want to keap the animations, mayaObject won't be a solution..
Nat

Yo're right, working in OBJ format will cause the crib to lose its animations.
Therefore, the only option is to study how the smoothing feature of Milkshape works.

I know that there is even an "Autosmooth" checkbox, in the "Group" tab; but this option is hearthily ill judged by the experienced Milkshape users, because it may lead to odd or impredictable results (mesh dark, or with odd shadows all over it).

As a first test, you could try activating the Autosmooth, and see what happen. If the result is worse than the current one, try the manual smoothing (if it ever exist, I don't know Milkshape well).

@natrobo: For animated objects you should to use the Meshtool. Milkshape isn´t able to keep smoothing options when you save a former .obj with UniMeshPlugin (at least I don´t know how to tell the programm to do this).

@all: Again, the pie menu options don´t like me. I have attached two objects (base game versions of my "far from perfect" set) who should have new pie menu options, but they just do not show up (very confusing as the pie menu shows up for other objects of the set). I hope someone will be able to help me.

Thanks in advance. bienchen83